The Benadryl capsules had been purchased—with a roll of Sweet Tarts and a bottle of platinum hair bleach—at a drugstore in Silver Beach, two blocks from Jimmy and Cleo’s condo. At first she claimed somebody had forged her signature on the credit card receipt. Her tune changed after the prosecutor, Rick Tarkington, offered to produce a handwriting expert and the sample of a recent signature on a deli menu. The singer had autographed it to a fan known only as “Chuck,” posing as a delivery boy.
To my surprise, Cleo called me one night before she got indicted. She was hanging out alone at Jizz. For giggles—and a witness—I took Carla Candilla.
The widow was half in the bag when we arrived. Gone was the silky pop-star glow. Her pageboy had been weed-whacked into some sort of unisex mop, and her face looked blotched and gaunt. Under the strobes her neglected tan took on a sickly greenish hue. It’s no day at the spa, being the target of a murder investigation.
We followed her to one of the club’s private rooms, where Cleo bummed a Silk Cut cigarette off Carla and said, “My lawyers’d shit a brick if they knew I was here.”
“Why? Are you going to confess?” Eagerly I slapped my notebook on the table.
Cleo wrinkled her nose and leaned closer. “What’s that you got on?”
“Your favorite cologne.”
It was called “Timberlake.” Carla and I spent an hour sniffing samples at the men’s counter in Burdines until we found the right one.
“All your fellas wear it,” I said to Cleo. “Loreal. Jerry the gorilla. You even doused it on Jimmy in his casket.”
“I like what I like,” she said, “but on you it would gag a maggot.”
Carla hooted. I deserved no less.
Listing slightly to starboard, Cleo said, “I gotta know, Tagger. Was it really you who did this to me? All by your lonesome?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just a tired old obituary writer.”
“As if,” she snorted.
Here Carla cut in: “Cleo, honey, your sleeve’s in the salsa.”
“Shit. This is a Versace.”
The bartender sent a club soda, and Cleo went to work scrubbing on the stain. I asked if it was true that the record label had canceled her contract. She said so what, it was a chickenshit outfit anyway. “After the trial I’m getting an incredibly sweet deal. My new manager’s talking mega.”
“Awesome,” I said, which seemed to please her. “Hey, have you found a new producer yet?”
Cleo’s response was to pulverize an ice cube with her molars.
“Or a new bodyguard?”
“That’s not funny, man. When this is over,” she said, “I’m gonna sue your newspaper for about twenty million bucks.”
“When this is over, Cindy Zigler, you’ll be in prison.”
“Yeah, right.”
Carla couldn’t help but notice the wane of bonhomie. “Cleo, before we say goodbye, I gotta ask—in the video, was that you or a body double?”
The widow perked up. “It was all me. Every curly little hair.”
Her arrest was bannered on the front page: Singer Charged in Death of Rock-Star Husband. That was the headline. Here was the byline:
By Jack Tagger Staff Writer
For the first time in four years I sent a clipping to my mother. I also saved a copy for Anne, at her request. She and Derek were in Italy where he was researching a new spy novel, The Bishop’s Chambermaid. Anne mentioned it, with a gently appropriate joke, in a postcard.
The truth behind James Bradley Stomarti’s death received heavy play in the celebrity press as well as the music trades. By the time the trial started, Jimmy and the Slut Puppies were hot all over again. The record company repackaged Floating Hospice and A Painful Burning Sensation as a double album, spiced with previously unreleased bonus tracks. In only three weeks, a digital re-mix of the “Basket Case” single drew sixty-two thousand downloads off the band’s interactive Web site. A new video, starring Kate Hudson as the bipolar mama, features never-before-seen concert footage of the Slut Puppies, including Jimmy’s lewd spoof of Pat Robertson.
The group is making money again. Miraculously, some of it has found its way to Jimmy’s estate, and many deserving little urchins will be trundling off to sea camps next summer.